The Seel Trade
by tapioca two-step
Summary: Dodger, a burnt-out Team Rocket agent, has been cursed by a Ninetales via the "no good deed goes unpunished" clause. He now has only one week to undo his greatest sin or be cursed into a lifetime of reliving the moment of his best friend's death.  RBY
1. Ossatueur

Chapter I: Ossatueur

They were going to catch her.

In the blushing blue light of a cloudy dawn, the marowak raised her head, her nostrils flaring as she took in the scent of their pursuers. Her four paws, planted firmly on the rain soaked silt, could feel the echoes of their rapid but heavy footsteps, tracing closer and closer to the field outside of Lavender Town where she had fled to after being flushed out of her nest in the Rock Tunnel.

She had smelled them coming hours earlier, the reek of their black-clad bodies tainting the cold, clear air of the mountain cave, but not until she heard the cries of her neighboring pre-evolutions in the darkness did she wearily and desperately gather enough strength to leave. She had gone as quickly as she could—too quickly to grab the stone-weathered femur that was her weapon of choice—but she had been significantly slowed down by her precious burden and her own exhaustion from the night before.

And now, caught between her nest and the secret boneyard that only her species knew about, the new mother's protective instinct flared to life under a veil of fatigue. Turning her bone-covered head over her shoulder, she opened her gentle jaws and picked up the small, earth-colored fuzzball that was her offspring, her hidden ears pricked back as she listened as the mouth of the cave funneled her pursuers' footfalls towards her senses. She had time, yet. Her four paws sinking into the wet dirt with every quick step, the marowak trotted down the hill towards Lavender Town, her pace hurried but not excessive in order to save the last of her energy. It was only when she heard the humans shouting after her retreating form as they left the tunnel did she kick up her heels and gallop into the still sleeping human settlement, spraying dirt behind her with every step. The clouds above her were thickening and darkening, blotting out the light of dawn, and the air filled with the smell of rain.

Long ago, the humans had built the strange square obelisk to their beloved dead near the entrance to the mountain path that led up towards the Rock Tunnel, unknowingly blocking access to the marowak boneyard that had been centuries in the making. But the marowak were a clever species, and had dug a narrow passageway underneath the thick concrete slab that the building had been built upon, and had so regained access to their sacred graveyard. Over the years, the passageway had opened up to the main floor of the tower, and the humans had found themselves sharing their pokemon cemetery with handfuls of stray cubones, drawn to the tower because of its contents. Cubones loved skeletons, and when there was too much competition in the Rock Tunnel from the stronger marowak groups, they often found solace in the bones they dug up in the Pokemon Tower.

The marowak hadn't been in the tower in years; being one of the largest and strongest marowak in her section of the tunnel, she always had first pick of the bones that came her way. As she squeezed her newly hollowed body into the whisper-thin opening near the back of the tower, she dimly recalled her own mother accompanying her to this sanctuary in times of trouble; floods in the cave, collapse of the ceiling due to excessive activity from the bigger pokemon such as onix.

But never this.

She had just pulled her haunches clear of the opening when a metal rod came lancing into the dry dirt directly behind her, piercing the ground with the sound like a snap. A shout of frustration punctuated the action of it being pulled up without her body skewered on its sharpened end.

"_Mreep_," the burden in her mouth said. The marowak turned to the side, muscles tensing, a growl stuck in her dry throat.

Ouside, there was a sound like a hiss, and a tinny-sounding canister clattered into the narrow tunnel after the mother and her child, spinning around with the force of the tainted air spraying out of its nozzle.

The marowak spun around and sprinted down the length of the tunnel, trying to close her lungs against the smell. She knew about this tactic—if she stayed in her long enough, the bad air would numb her limbs and slowly poison her body, making her easy prey for the monsters that were chasing her. It had happened to her own mother, whose skull she had borne for most of her life. The marowak had been a quick learner. She had never trusted humans after that. There was nothing in their hearts but greed and self-love. They were the only species she knew of that regularly abandoned their children, as she had often seen while gazing down at Lavender Town in her younger days. A human's worth was only visible to themselves, it seemed, for she could not understand their needless brutality.

There was a silver beam of light ahead of her and she gathered her hindquarters and leapt up through the opening. Leaving the darkness blinded her honey brown eyes for a moment, but her legs moved automatically, dragging her body up and over the lip of the floor and through the low, square hole in the wall. The room she had come into was the ground floor of the Tower. Her reflection shone in the smooth, polished tiles, and the pads of her paws made quick tapping noises as she headed for the winding staircase across the empty space. It was too early in the morning for the humans to mourn, and the lights were dimmed above her. The windows showed the sky to be angry, shining dark silver, making her mother's skull glow dimly.

The door flew open with a bang when the marowak hopped onto the first carpeted step. Without looking behind her, she closed her mouth more tightly around her child and bounded up the stairs three at a time, her lean body stretching out to its full length and her tail swinging from side to side for balance. There was the sound of a heavy item being thrown down, and someone started shouting orders in a deep, bellowing voice, punctuated by barking that struck fear into the marowak's heart. A chorus of footsteps—both human and pokemon—hit the stairs as she was halfway to the next flight of stairs on the first floor. Headstones, their polished marble forms impeding her weary way, rose up around her in a forest of gray. The smell of old death in the Tower clung to the back of her throat, but it did not bother her. Death itself did not bother her; she wore its badge over her own head; the members of her tribe were architects of bone, but for her offspring, so soon after being brought into the world, she would rage against it until her final breath. She would not let her offspring's tiny flame of life go out.

She hit the second flight of stairs without much trouble save for her own labored breathing, and continued her relentless pace towards heaven until a ferocious growl from behind her told her that something had caught up to her. In one fluid movement she had deposited her offspring behind a headstone close to a wall and whirled around to see that a growlithe, its thick neck clasped in a tight black collar, was standing a few paces away from her, its hackles raised and a menacing snarl vibrating in its chest. The humans' voices were still downstairs, searching for her among the maze of tombstones. She did not have the time or energy to attack this creature, this slave to some ignorant trainer, but she could not turn her back to it. Whether or not it would raise the alarm to its masters downstairs depended on the time it took for her to make it faint.

The growlithe made no pretense in attacking her. It lunged forwards as soon as she had turned, its jaws opening wide, pink tongue lolling over jagged teeth. The bite caught her between her shoulder and her chest; the thick fur there prevented it from doing much more than superficial damage. However, her new mother's body was already weak from the loss of blood, and it took most of the strength she had to yank herself away, whirl around, and deliver two swift kicks to the fire dog's side. The dog whined and inhaled sharply through its nose, spitting out a ball of flame that she barely avoided; as she leapt out of the way, she struck her shoulder against a headstone and went down heavily on her side. The growlithe was on her instantly, its furry paws braced on the floor on either side of her body, its jaws open and closing in on her throat. She shoved at its body with her paws, and for a few tense moments they scuffled, their physical attacks clumsy and frantic as their bodies skidded on the polished floor.

In the end, the dog's forced loyalty to its master distracted it, as a whistle from the floor below momentarily arrested its attention and it looked towards the staircase expectantly. The marowak's head jerked up, her mother's skull smashing into the growlithe's muzzle with the sound of bone cracking against bone. The fire dog, several of its teeth broken and its nose wet with blood, flopped in a tangled heap to the ground, nearly crushing her under its weight. Limping, missing a patch of fur from her chest, the marowak retrieved her cubone and headed wearily up the next flight of stairs. Her body was fleeing, to where she knew not, but in the back of her mind she knew she had cornered herself. Her instinct told her to find solace in her ancestors' burial grounds, but she was unwilling to drag her child to such a fate. He would live. Whatever happened to her, he would live.

She reached the next level and headed for the last flight of stairs, all of her senses tentatively attuned to the distant sounds of her pursuers. She paused as she was about to ascend the steps, opting instead to limp around the empty floor, walking carefully around the headstones until she found what she was looking for: an out-of-the-way grave marker with a freshly cut bouquet of vibrantly colored flowers resting on their side in front of the marble. They had been watered recently and their myriad scent still smelled heavily of fresh air and sunshine.

Her mouth opened and she dropped her offspring and nudged him, none too gently, into the bouquet of red roses. It squeaked at her as she stepped away from it, trying to follow her. She turned patiently and pushed him with the bone nose of her skull helmet back into his hiding place, warning him with a slight trill that he was not to move. When he tried to follow her again she stamped her hind foot impatiently and barked. Obediently, the newborn cubone, his downy head and shoulders not yet knowing the weight of his own mother's skull, hunched down in the shadows of the headstone, watching his guardian with wide eyes as she trotted away and took her position in front of the flight of stairs that led towards the last floor above them, restlessly walking back and forth on all fours, her sides heaving with exertion. Once or twice she glanced at her offspring from the corner of her eyes, but she did not move any closer. The risk was too great.

Moments later, in a rush of black and red, Team Rocket had her surrounded.

Her eyes flicked from one grimacing human face to the next, counting them, not knowing the number but agreeing when her instinct said _too many_. Several of them, their hats shadowing their pale foreheads, were carrying long, thin clubs and razor-sharp metal skewers, and she recognized the dim smell of bad air on the ones who had canisters tied to their belts. Another human stood behind the group, a pair of pokeballs in his hand.

"That's probably the little bastard who busted up my growlithe," he said nastily. "Can we skin it, boss?"

The one addressed as 'boss' made a face. "I thought it had a cubone with it," he said, looking around suspiciously at the headstones around them. Most of them were decked with fresh flowers, all red roses, and impatience rose like gorge in his throat. "It started running when we were clubbing the others and it had somethin' in its mouth."

As if on cue, the marowak began backing up the stairs, hissing loudly. All of them had the smell of dead cubones on their clothes. The boss followed her, step by step, trailed by the rest of his crew.

"Awright, you little bugger, where is 'e? I promise I won't hurt ya. Just gimme what'chew was carryin' and we'll be on our way."

She came out on the top floor, still moving steadily backwards. This upper floor consisted only of a long, narrow chapel. A stained glass window, hanging above an altar covered with a white tablecloth and decorated with a single lit candle, threw its rainbow light onto the red carpeted aisle that the marowak stood in the middle of. Her breath came in a constant hiss now as she was slowly herded towards the altar, but she was pleased that not one of the humans had stayed on the floor where her precious one was. She had distracted them, for now.

"Search dis floor," the boss said, his narrow eyes locked on the defiant pokemon before him. "It's gotta be here somewheres or else momma here wouldn't be so angry. Stupid things, marowaks is. And dis one practically flushed itself outta da cave and let us corner it up here. Where else ya gonna go, darlin'? Was you gonna jump?"

"I ain't seein' anything, boss," said one of the thugs as he peeked under the altar's tablecloth. "There ain't no places for a cubone to hide."

"It was this big fer chrissake!" The boss made a circle with his forefinger and thumb. "Momma here probly shoved him into a crack in the wall somewheres! Find it, dammit!"

But try as they might, the other Team Rocket members could not find the marowak's offspring. They went over the floor again and again, turning up nothing but stems of incense and a box of replacement candles for the one burning on the altar. "Besides, we've got two whole loads of cubone skulls waiting downstairs with Frank and Rex," another one said as she finished her third sweep of the floorboards. "And Giovanni's only asked for one shipment. We've got too much surplus to deal with cuz now we gotta process all those skulls before the next order comes in." Her eyes brightened. "Why don't we just take this one's head? We got her cornered. Might as well make all of our trouble worth it. My legs ache from climbing all of those stairs."

"Cuz marowak skulls is too hard, dipshit," said the boss, crossing his arms over his chest. "Can't shape 'em like ya can with cubone skulls. Worthless pieces of shit," he muttered, looking at the still-bristling marowak. Suddenly his temper flared and he lashed out with his foot, catching the pokemon by surprise as his boot caught her underneath the jaw. Her body flipped over itself and crumpled by the wall.

"Ya sure ya can't find da little bastard?" the boss demanded furiously of his team. They shook their heads fearfully. "I swear I saw this slimeball run outta da cave with one a' my cubones in its mouth. A whole cubone—that's five hunnerd dollars this little monster has stolen outta my pocket!" He reached down to grab the marowak but her head came up and her teeth barely missed ripping open the man's hand. His thin face darkened in fury and he held out his hand. "Gimme a club, damn it! I'm gonna teach this little bastard a lesson in respect."

The proffered club was taken and the man tapped it against the palm of his opposite hand as he regarded the weakened creature in front of him. It was watching the other humans, its body stiff as if in anticipation, seemingly waiting to see if one of them would come across what he was looking for. Anger and impatience consumed him and his hand flashed down.

"I don't have time for dis!" he bellowed as the club connected with the hard skull covered the marowak's head. It nearly bounced out of his hand at the force of the contact, but the pokemon still cried out and stumbled away, closer to the altar.

"Ya gonna pay fer playin' with me! Now I gotta go back to headquarters with five hunnerd less than what I wanted to get!" He swung again and missed, and this time the marowak lashed out and headbutted against his shin. Splitting pain lanced up his body and he collapsed, dropping the club and clutching his leg with both gloved hands.

"It broke my leg!" he wailed, his voice cracking. "The bastard broke my leg!"

The marowak backed up again, facing the encircling group of Team Rocket members with triumph in its golden eyes.

"Kill it!" the boss screamed, pointing. "I want this thing dead an' bleedin' at my feet before we leave!"

Several of the Team Rocket members looked at each other dubiously. Killing the pokemon would mean leaving blood, which meant evidence, which could possibly trace the event back to them.

"Whaddaya want us to kill it with?"

"Clubs! Kickin' it! Play wid it like it just played with us for the past thirty minutes!"

They all turned on her then, their smug faces dark with malice at the promise of spilling blood, and the marowak dropped her elegant head, braced her sturdy legs, and prepared to fight. These humans, she thought as the first blow from a heavy club landed on her back and crushed her hipbone, were definitely the plague of the earth. Cruelty fed them and sustained them. One of the metal skewers glanced off of her mother's skull and nearly cracked it in two. She managed to wound all but one of her assailants; the one she could not reach was standing at a distance and pinning her neck to the floor with a choke-collar that he had managed to slip around her head when her back was turned. More blows now, coming down like rain, and she bit and kicked and lunged until the pain came up like a wave and overwhelmed her and she went down, still fighting in her mind even though she wasn't sure that her body was responding. These humans had been the curse of her tribe, of all tribes of pokemon across the face of the world, their violent trade going unchecked and unbalanced. Her spirit rose up in her heart and cursed the humans who were doing this to her—cursed all humans, for she was sure that there was not one of them who had a heart capable of loving anyone but themselves.

Ten minutes later, it was over. Team Rocket quickly vacated the tower as the storm outside broke and the morning came with a torrential fall of rain; the boss had to be carried out by four of his underlings. They were all covered with blood. Only some of it was their own.

After a while, the small form of a cubone appeared at the top of the stairs. A rose petal was stuck to his furry body and he waddled unsteadily on exhausted back legs down the center aisle; the climb up the stairs had tired him out and his stomach was rumbling. He had only had one feeding from his mother before they had been forced to leave. He had stayed where his mother had left him until hunger had compelled him to search for her. The smell of death filled his nostrils long before he reached the broken form lying in a pool of light from the stained glass window. He nudged her under her jaw, moving his nose to poke at her crooked neck, her stiff forelegs. She did not respond.

He stayed by her side for hours until more footsteps, gentle and shuffling, told him of another presence approaching him. He looked up and growled weakly at an old man, as warped and crooked as a lightning-struck tree, who stood in the doorway, leaning heavily upon a carved cane.

"Oh," the old man said, his voice whispery and full of grief. "Oh, you poor thing."

The cubone was picked up without pretense, and the hungry creature did not have the strength to protest. Instead, he allowed himself to be carried towards the stairs, away from the protector whom he had barely known, but would soon know, learning her burden through the weight of the cracked skull he had placed over his own head.

His lonesome crying did not start until he had lost sight of his mother over the old man's shoulder.

And the candle glowing on the altar that the old man had placed marowak upon flickered gently and then burned brighter than before.

* * *

I used to capitalize 'Pokemon' and the names of all the species, but after reading the reasoning behind why these things should not be capitalized, I have taken this into account. Thanks for reading.

People are stewards of the world, not the masters, so please, take care of the animals?


	2. Starlight

Chapter II: Starlight

"Hurry up and gimme the next one."

The next starmie was handed down the line of grunts sitting or leaning along the bow of the little cutter as it rose and sank in the choppy waves off the shores of Cinnabar Island. It was pitch black, close to midnight, and the stars above shone brilliantly in the cloudless sky and were reflected cheerfully in the water. The moon was high but cast enough light that it was no troublesome task for the grunts to do their work with the cutter's decklights cut off. They had to make due, either way; they could not risk being spotted by the naval police, and the darkness made it easier for the divers to spot the crimson glow of staryu gemstones in the water. Periodically the divers would resurface with two or three of the squirming creatures and hand them up to their associates in the boat, then reaffix their SCUBA masks on their faces and submerge themselves once more.

And then the work on the boat began.

Boss Dodger—addressed as such by everyone but his superiors—waited until the starmie's limp form landed none-too-gently in his lap. He was sitting with his legs stretched out on the deck before him, his left leg wrapped in a cast and his crutches propped against the railing next to him. The blow he had received from the marowak had shattered his shin in three places, and the gang's doctor had set it and told him that he'd be crippled for at least six more months. The painkillers he had taken before setting out from Fuchsia were not helping, and his stomach churned with the rolling of the waves. Gritting his teeth in anger and pain, he dug the crowbar into the narrow space between the starmie's glittering gemstone and the gold formation that it was set in. The violet starfish's limbs trembled violently, but due to the shock of being forced to evolve with the manufactured water stones that the group had brought along with them, it could not move. The multihued stone, bright as a star, popped a little out of its place, and Dodger reached in with his hand and gave it a rough yank. The little star came out and the starmie shuddered and fell limp.

"Got anudder one," he said, handing the gem to the next associate in line and shoving the starmie's body off of the boat and back into the water. It was too much work to remove the golden parts of its body, anyway.

There was a clattering tumble on deck near the bow as one of the newly caught staryu tried to reject the water stone, even as its body began to warp in ways it couldn't even understand. It made it halfway to the edge of the deck before one of the grunts seized it by a newly grown limb and tossed it towards Dodger with a laugh. "Got a runaway there! Make sure it's done evolving before you cut it."

One of the women, her dark skirt soaking wet and clinging to her legs, squealed and dropped the crowbar she was holding. "I hate it when they squirm!" she moaned, shoving the starmie away from her lap. "Can't we kill em before we cut into them? It's like they're in pain or somethin'!"

Another grunt reached over and bashed the creature once, twice on the back. It twitched but stopped moving. "Just do it quick," he told her as he handed the pokemon back to her. "And don't be stupid, starmie can't feel pain."

"This whole place smells like rot," Dodger complained under his breath. "I can't believe I'm stuck here pullin' rocks with you assholes."

"Don't blame us for what you messed up, Boss," another grunt, Jilla, said with a smirk. "You were the one who overloaded on cubone skulls and messed up our schedules. Giovanni wouldn't'a been half as mad if you hadn't put yourself outta commission by getting to close to that angry momma. Even _Erik _isn't that dumb." She jerked her head towards a whip-thin man near the bow who was struggling violently with a staryu that kept rapidspinning and hitting him in the jaw with its limbs. "You're out here pulling rocks with the rest of us cuz you effed up. Just deal with it and stop whining, will you?"

When the next starmie landed in his lap, he took out his frustration by smashing each of its limbs with the crowbar before ripping the rainbow gemstone from its socket in the front of its body. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," he muttered. "I'm glad I killed it. We broke every bone in its stupid body. Goddamn, my leg hurts."

"Make sure you don't chip any of the gemstones when you're removing them." The leader of this particular nighttime operation, a man known only as Kev, stood by the door of the cabin with a lit cigarette in his hand. "If I see any flaws in these things during inspection, I'll put a matching one on your face."

"I can't believe we have to go through the trouble of makin' 'em evolve first," one of the grunts said as he struggled to hold the water stone to the staryu's body long enough for the evolution process to begin. Kev grimaced.

"Do you want to be paid six hundred or nine hundred for each of these things?" he asked. "Do you like getting swindled out of an easy three just because you don't wanna work for it? They don't even fight back! Now shut up and get back to work!"

The slow and methodic work continued without another word from most of the grunts, save for the occasional grumble or cry of surprise when a staryu was lost from someone's grip. The staryu were fished from their perches on the sandy, shallow floor of this part of the ocean, the canister of water stones gradually emptied of its contents, and the water around the boat gradually filled with the hollowed bodies of starmie floating atop the water, dark stars in dark space, the light of the moon reflecting dimly off of their now empty golden sockets.

It wasn't until early the next morning, when the divers were slowly coming up the ladder to rejoin their group, when a shout of surprise came from one of their neighboring boats across the water. With some difficultly, Dodger was able to stand up, bracing his nauseated body against the railing as he peered out across the water at the other boat. His eyes narrowed and he sucked in a quick breath between his teeth as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

"The hell? They got themselves a lapras?"

"N'way! A lapras!" Jilla leaned dangerously far over the railing, squinting to try to see the other boat and their prize. "I thought they traveled in groups! Their fins are so delicious when you barbecue them!"

"I'm gonna be interested to see how they plan to catch it," one of the grunts said. The others nodded in agreement. Lapras were huge, and a cornered lapras was a deadly threat, especially for a tiny cutter like the other team were using. Another threat was the risk of the lone lapras's pod coming back to search for it, and pods were easily angered in the face of violence. As if on cue, their boat's engine revved and they began turning, picking up speed and cautiously approaching their sister ship to help. Kev came out on deck, still smoking.

"I guess Al radioed Giovanni and he gave 'im the go-ahead. We gotta have this thing in Fuchsia by four if we wanna do this without getting caught. Shit, why'd it have to be on _my _watch?" He ran his hand through his short brown hair. "Do you know how much shit we can get in trouble for if we're charged for poaching lapras?"

"Why can't we sell it to the Safari Zone?" Jilla asked, her mouth practically watering as the boat drew near to the other cutter, whose deck was filled with more Rockets, all staring at their struggling quarry.

"Cuz the Safari Zone already _has _one on display, and besides, Giovanni said he wants this one cut up. There's a coupla merchants he knows that would pay big for fresh lapras fins."

"Y'mean we can't get any?" Jilla's face had fallen into a scowl. Kev glared at her.

"You're not good enough to eat lapras, dipshit," he said scornfully. "Now grab a rope and wait till I tell you what Al wants us to do."

The lapras was large, which meant it was old, but the light in its storm gray eyes was angry, and its blood was up. It was tossing its head on its long neck, mouth open, its usual soothing song now piercing and furious. Several ropes that had been thrown around its neck now trailed in the swirling currents around its body, having been ripped from the Rockets' hands. Al, a corpulent form on the other boat, waved at Kev and laughed merrily.

"Didja get a good haul, Kev?" he shouted over the cries of the trapped pokemon behind him.

"Not as good as you!" Kev smiled back wanly, jealousy evident in his eyes.

"It's this lucky? Dunno where this one came from; probably it was gonna beach itself on Cinnabar. They do that sometimes, when they're sick. The meat'll be fine if we butcher it quick. Do you have any harpoons?"

"No," Kev said, eyeing the circling lapras warily, "but I think I've got some tranquilizers."

"Why bother? Do you have any real shells?"

Kev took the cigarette out of his mouth. "Yeah, I guess. Big ones, for taking down tauros and kangaskhan."

"Hell, just use those, then!" Al laughed again, watching as the lapras dodged another thrown rope. It looked dangerously close to ramming his boat. "Just aim for the head and neck. We're only gonna use the fins, after all!"

As Kev returned to the cabin to load the rifle with shells, Dodger moved the crutches under his arm and shuffled out of the way as the other gang members on his boat took their positions near the railing, ropes and, in one case, chains ready in their gloved hands.

"What if it dives?" Jilla asked, twirling her rope around her wrist casually.

"We've got nets strung underwater between our boats," Dodger said. "It'll drown itself if it tries."

"Okay, boys," called Al, "let's start up the engines and flush this baby towards the reef. Keep it even, now, we don't want it getting away!"

The twin cutters pressed towards the lapras, and with a weary cry, the pokemon whirled and began swimming away, his great flippers sliding silently through the water. Turning gently to the side to avoid the oncoming reef, the pokemon was startled to see the boat nearly brushing up against his side, refusing to allow him to turn. The humans aboard the boat took this opportunity to fling out their ropes and their chains, many of them snagging on the craggy shell on its back. One of the ropes looped around its ear and its horn, jerking its head down nearly into the water. The lapras inhaled, the wind that whistled through its nostrils sounding like a storm.

"We got trouble!" Kev said as he staggered out onto the deck with the rifle in his head. "Everyone get down!"

The ice beam hit the water underneath Al's boat with a gunshot sound, and the waves instantly froze around the hull of the cutter. Tendrils of ice crept up the sides and covered the wood of the deck with an inch-thick layer of frost, flooring every Team Rocket member aboard. Immediately after this attack, the lapras's head smashed into the side of the boat, punching a four-foot wide hole in the hull below the frozen waterline. The boat tilted and crumbled under its own weight, spilling the crew into and through the thin ice layer on the water

"Shit," Al muttered as he struggled to sit up, hanging onto the lip of the deck for dear life. The pillar of lapras's head and neck rose over him and when he looked up, he saw that the creature was staring right at him, the various chains and ropes that pinioned its body looking ridiculously small against its girth. It opened its mouth and roared at him, a sound that shook him to the core. A single point of blue appeared in its open maw, and the air crackled around him, suddenly bitterly cold, freezing the very air in his lungs. He tried to call for help but his throat had closed, the skin frozen to itself. He clawed at his fat throat as the ice beam hit him, and the sound of a double shot rang into the air.

The lapras reeled suddenly, throwing his head up and crying, dark blood flowing from the hole that had been punched in his powerful chest. Kev lowered the rifle for an instant and then turned and shouted to one of the grunts in the wheel house. "Get the boat over behind it! It'll sink if it dies and we don't have ties on it!"

His teeth clenched around his cigarette. Shit. Al was dead, he could see that plainly enough. As fat as Al was, a direct ice beam to a human body would always be fatal. The other Team Rocket members were making their way through the water towards his ship, but he couldn't stop for them. They could wait while he did away with the quarry in front of him. He raised the rifle again and tried to think of where he wanted his next shot to land. He didn't want to waste bullets.

"Throw!" He commanded, and a web of ropes and chains were flung out from the sides of the ship and landed on the floundering lapras. "Get some buoys on that bastard!"

The water around the boat was already tainted red when the buoys were roped around the lapras' arched neck. When Kev was sure that the creature's body was securely pinioned to his boat and able to be towed with the help of the floatation devices bobbing around its body, he took careful aim again at the back of its head.

The lapras turned one narrowed gray eye towards the humans in the boat, exhaling heavily out of its bleeding nostrils.

Kev fired. The entry wound in the back of the sea creature's head was neat and clean, and the lapras's neck jerked forward, its head crushing the bow of the boat underneath it. The weight of its body dragged the buoys halfway under the water, but it didn't sink.

Lowering the rifle with a groan, Kev looked at the other Team Rocket members clambering aboard his boat. "What the hell were you thinking, getting that close?" he demanded of one of the men, who was coughing up bloody seawater onto the deck.

The man glowered at him. "It wasn't our idea, it just happened," he snapped back. "It's Al's fault for being a dumbass about the whole thing. He never saw a lapras out in the wild before this. What the hell we gonna do with a whole lapras? We don't even have a saw to remove its fins!" He put a hand to his curly hair. "Damn it, I lost my hat."

Jilla put her nose in the crook of her elbow after tying off her rope to the handrail. "It smells out here now," she complained. "We have to tow this thing all the way back to the harbor?"

"Quit your bitching, all of you!" Kev shouted. "Are all of Al's team here? They are? Okay, listen up. Since Al was stupid about it and I had to save your asses, my boat's gonna be the one who gets the payment when it comes in. I don't wanna hear another word outta you lot. In the meantime, go count the gems we got from our load of starmies." He watched the other boat as it sank beneath the slowly melting ice as his boat turned slowly for home. "Since you all lost your cargo, you'll have to do the explaining to the boss. I'm not gonna take the shit for you."

A general groan came from Al's team, but after a dirty look from the man with the gun, they were quickly silenced.

"Good. We won't have to worry about butcherin' the lapras cuz Giovanni's already got someone who can pick it up back at Fuchsia. We gotta book it to make it, though. Now get to work!" He stalked back into the wheelhouse.

Jilla joined Dodger at the aft of the ship. Trailing in the wake of the boat were a handful of the discarded starmie bodies, dancing in the current before sinking into the depths beneath the stars. Dodger leaned against the railing and watched the lapras, whose head was dragging underneath its body from the weight of the water. His leg ached painfully, sending his whole left side into spasms. He grimaced. All this grief and work for a handful of hundreds—and he had to spend most of the money on medical treatment for his leg.

"How's your leg?" Jilla eventually asked, elbowing him in the side when she saw the pain on his face. "Bet'cher feeling it now, huh?"

"Shut up," Dodger said, his face turning green as the boat rolled under him. He staggered a little on his crutches. "I hate this job."

"Yeah, well, I love it," Jilla said, smiling brightly. Her face was smudged a little with red. She eyed the dead pokemon ghosting across the water as it was dragged behind the boat. "Lapras sound real pretty when they sing, but they sound even better when they scream."


	3. Hate This Place

Chapter III: Hate This Place

He arrived early to the Celadon Game Corner the next morning, scanning his keycard in the access door off to the side of the building, hidden behind the air conditioning unit and a clump of evergreens, while struggling to keep the crutches under his arms. His stomach was still churning, the smell of dead lapras and pungent seawater clinging to the back of his throat as he slammed the door shut behind him and limped down the narrow hallway. Another door opened up into the empty slot machine area, which was being mopped by one of Team Rocket's low level undercover agents. The other agent nodded curtly to him as Dodger reached under the colorful poster on the back wall and flipped a switch. The hidden panel in the wall slid open and, ignoring the other agent, he thunked his way down the staircase.

He didn't want to be here today. His leg ached from the break, his arms ached from the crutches, and his stomach ached from the combined nausea of what he still smelled and the medicine that he had been forced to take without food because all he tasted was blood and seawater. He cursed repeatedly as he hit the first floor and made his way towards the small break room where he knew they had applesauce somewhere that he could eat before he blew chunks all over his freshly laundered uniform.

As he spooned the refrigerated applesauce into one of the bowls he pulled from the shelf hanging over the sink and grabbed a spoon that didn't look recently used, he heard the door upstairs open and close. A few agents strolled by the break room, headed to their separate offices to go over the new day's tasks. He sat down on the bench and ate slowly, feeling his stomach calm down a bit. He didn't know what he was supposed to do today, honestly. He couldn't remember much except Giovanni on the viewscreen throwing a fit due to Al's shoddy job about the lapras. They had gotten the carcass to shore in enough time to have it butchered and the evidence buried, but the mess of the sunk boat near Cinnabar would have to be cleared up quickly before the police found out about it.

He went to the counter again and refilled his bowl with applesauce, listening to the sounds of movement from the hallway upstairs. He was surprised to hear the upstairs door open again and this time, large groups of agents came clattering down the stairs, talking in muffled voices. More doors opened and closed throughout the underground facility, and Dodger almost hit himself in the forehead for forgetting that today was initiation day for the new recruits and Giovanni had commanded that all agents be present at the event.

_Stupid, _he thought. _I hate initiation days. _

Dodger fixed his hat more firmly on his head, pulling the brim down nearly to his nose as he slumped over his bowl. He listened to the shuffling footsteps of the other grunts as they filed past the small break room and waited until he was alone again before he got up to leave. To his surprise, Jilla was leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest.

"What'cha dragging your feet for?" she asked him as he rinsed out his empty bowl and put it back on the shelf with the others. He shrugged and limped past her into the hallway, muttering angrily under his breath when she joined him, walking side-by-side towards the auditorium. "Today's the day we all get new flunkies to kick around! Isn't it the best?"

"I don't see why it's so great," he said as they turned a corner and pushed open the double doors that led into the large open space that had already been packed to the brim with people. The room was crowded but not disorganized; everyone stood in their designated ranks in straight rows of ten, creating a regimented ocean of black in front of the polished wooden stage that rose above their heads at the front of the room. Upon this stage stood the twenty or so new inductees into Team Rocket, each of their unique starter pokemon fidgeting at their sides.

"Aw, look, they even left a space for the crippled one up at the front," Jilla laughed as she pushed him into an open space before a row of nine other men that Dodger did not know. "I'll see ya later!" She disappeared into the forest of black uniforms, her orange ponytail bobbing beneath her hat. He glowered after her and stared as his feet, his mood souring even further as he stared at the cast on his leg. _Six months, jeez. _

"Hey, Dodg, I heard what happened to your leg," said the man next to him, speaking in a low voice as the last few stragglers took their places in the ranks around the platform. "What the hell were you thinking, getting that close to a rhyhorn? You could have been killed!"

_A rhyhorn? _"It wasn't a rhyhorn. It was just some stupid marowak that got in my way."

A snort of laughter. "Looks like you got into _its _way, man. Jeez, only a marowak? For a second I thought you had actually been assigned a _good _mission."

"Shut up, loser," Dodger told him under his breath as the room quieted when the lights dimmed and then intensified on the stage. The twenty recruits all stood up straighter, the pokemon at their sides shrinking down. One of the recruits, a young man in his late teens, reached down and patted his sandslash affectionately on the head. It looked up at him with liquid brown eyes and rubbed its nose against the boy's leg.

A line of high-ranking Rocket officials filed onto the stage in front of the recruits. They were joined soon after by a persian, its padded paws making no sound on the polished wood. It sat back on its haunches next to the podium and began cleaning its paws.

"How long d'you think this is gonna take?" asked one of the grunts behind Dodger.

When Giovanni strode out of the wings, the hush that fell over the entire room was awkward and tense. The fabric of the Boss's impeccable black suit gleamed under the harsh lights, and when he raised a hand to greet his phalanx of ne'er-do-wells, the ring on his middle finger gleamed like a star. He took one sweeping glance around the darkened auditorium before he turned and gestured to the figures behind him.

"Today," he said, his voice made even more powerful by the mic attached to his lapel, "we induct these men and women into the coveted ranks of Team Rocket. For the past six months, they have undergone the fiercest training rituals and tests of loyalty that have ever been conceived. Their dedication to furthering Team Rocket's cause has only been surpassed by their desire to devote their entire lives to the glory that I envisioned so many years ago when I began this enterprise. The men and women that stand before you are the finest men and women you will see anywhere, and you, my loyal friends, should be honored to be in their presence."

Dodger could see the new recruits puffing up with pride, and his stomach churned around the applesauce he had eaten earlier.

Giovanni continued, his polished black shoes clicking faintly as he paced up and down on the stage. "What the recruits realize is that, in order to join these esteemed ranks before them, they must sacrifice everything—and they are quite ready to do so. They have, each and every one of them, volunteered to give up their homes, their personal belongings, their loving connections to their families and friends; in short, they must give up _themselves _to be a part of our cause. And so, in the spirit of Team Rocket, we shall demonstrate our last lesson to these twenty men and women: that all pokemon exist for our glory."

He turned, and the Team Rocket officials each pulled out a whip-thin piece of twine from their suit pockets, handing them to the baffled trainers.

"You in the audience know well that there must be no love between a pokemon and its master. There must only be obedience and discipline. That is why we pool our pokemon and assign no one pokemon to no one Rocket agent. To make a personal connection with a pokemon is to give your love to an entity other than Team Rocket. This is unforgivable."

He turned to the twenty new recruits on stage. Each of their faces had blanched. Dodger's eyes fell to the sandslash, who had backed up and was hiding behind its trainer's legs. He hated this part, hated the pokemon for looking so innocent, hated the trainers for being so emotional about the whole stupid thing, hated the way it made him feel—like he still _cared_ about the stupid creatures.

"You new recruits will kill your starter pokemon as your final initiation to Team Rocket. To refuse to do this is to refuse your will to live, since you have given your lives to our cause."

The look of horror on each of the recruit's faces twisted Dodger's stomach. The method had changed this year, but it was always the same; the secret initiation ceremony that nobody outside of Team Rocket knew about. He had done it, Jilla had done it, every one of the hundreds of black-clad agents had shot or stabbed—or, this year, strangled—their precious starter pokemon from their 'previous' lives of non-crime and happiness. And every time he watched this scene, his mind would force him to remember how his own friend—no, slave—had looked when he had taken aim with the pistol. He had had to use two shots because Water Whip—no, the dewgong he had trained up from a seel—had dodged the first shot and the bullet had glanced off, making a red streak on the pokemon's snowy face.

He took particular interest in the rubber pad on the bottom of his left crutch as the first sounds of struggle began onstage. He began humming absently to himself as the chorus of strangled sobs joined the sound of flailing limbs. He looked up once, to see the now-limp sandslash being dragged offstage, and then the sounds of applause began in the organized ranks around him as the twenty murderers stepped forwards, their tear-streaked faces anguished and sick and happy as they joined hands and raised their arms above their heads. Even Giovanni patted his fingers together politely before spinning on his heel and walking offstage briskly, being joined by the persian before he disappeared behind the curtain.

As the applause thundered around him, he hunched his shoulders and blocked out the noise.

* * *

"DODGER!"

The addressed agent spun around at his station, dropping the stack of paperwork he had been going through. The words, "Shit, whaddaya want!" were out of his mouth before he realized that it was Elliot, Team Rocket's vice president, who had addressed him. He winced visibly and stood up, bracing on hand on the table. "I mean, yessir," he said, defeated.

"_In_deed," Elliot said smarmily, striding into the open office area. The rest of the agents busily returned to their tasks. "I saw you at the ceremony this morning. Your enthusiasm, was, shall we say, less than evident."

"Sorry," Dodger muttered. Elliot's perfectly arched eyebrow rose.

"I've noticed your work getting shoddier and shoddier as of late, Dodger. Giovanni was extremely disappointed to learn that you were responsible for the excessive load of cubone skulls in your last command mission. Because of you, the price for each skull dropped by three hundred dollars. It'll be a while before you get another mission of that kind of import again."

_Hooray, _Dodger thought joylessly, but he nodded and said, "Yeah. Sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Dodger. We'll be keeping our eye on you. One more wrong move and you'll be out."

_Out. _Synonymous with dead. Dodger nodded, and Elliot sighed.

"What happened to you, Dodger? You used to be the best agent we had. From the very start, you showed such promise, and now, you're wallowing on the bottom with the rest of these nobodies." When Dodger didn't reply, he cleared his throat and reached into his pocket, handing him a folded piece of paper.

"Here's an assignment that'll help you get back in the Boss's good graces," he said as Dodger unfolded it and looked over the map with a scowl. "We got sensor warning in the woods on Route Seven. Something's triggered a snare, so go take a choke collar and a coupl'a pokeballs, find out what it is and bring it back."

"But I gotta busted leg!" Dodger wailed. Elliot smirked and walked away.

"Think of it as exercise. Do it, Dodg!"

Twenty minutes later, Dodger, decked out in full Rocket uniform because he forgot his plainclothes disguise, was limping through the waist-high grasses on Route Seven, his crutches sinking inches into the wet mud. He had a choke collar looped around his elbow and a knife stuck in his belt loop in case the pokemon was feisty.

_Making the guy with the broken leg go for a walk, yeah, real funny, Elliot. You'll see. When I find this thing I'll make it wish it was never born. Stupid things. Stupid ceremony. I hate this place._

He turned the corner and came into the clearing where the snare had been marked on his map. Pushing aside a leaf-laden branch, he stopped short, his breath arresting in his throat. All thoughts of punishing the pokemon vanished from his mind.

A ninetales was staring at him from across the clearing, a golden vision against the backdrop of green foliage. It stood stock still when it saw him, three paws planted firmly on the grass, while its hind left leg was lifted off of the ground, held almost against the underside of its body; its foot had been caught in a wire snare set into the grass. It jerked its foot several times as it saw him walking closer, but the wire merely tightened painfully against its burnished yellow fur. It was then that Dodger saw that one of the creature's nine beautiful tails had been caught in the snare as well, close to its haunch, and that the wire had cut into it and made it bleed.

Dodger had never felt so unlucky in his life. He knew the legends; a ninetales could curse a human for 1,000 years if the human even _looked _at them funny. If he even touched one of its tails, he'd be a dead man walking—it would curse him and possess him and take over his mind and make him do horrible, inhumane things. But he couldn't leave it in the trap. Giovanni knew there was a pokemon in this particular snare, and if he didn't bring something back to show for it, he'd be fired. If he let it go for the same fear of being cursed, Giovanni would have him butchered.

It was officially the worst day of his life. He felt woozy somehow, especially since watching the ceremony, and now he was faced with being cursed for _forever. _He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, watching the ninetales as warily as it was watching him, its ruby red eyes following him as he limped around the clearing. It had set its pinioned foot down and its free tails flowed like banners in the breeze.

"Why'd ya have to get caught inna snare, man?" Dodger suddenly shouted. The ninetales tossed its head in alarm at his voice. "I thought ninetales was supposed to be smart and stuff. You're just not supposed to _do _this!" He inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to calm himself down.

"Look," he said, in a much lower tone, "I heard somewheres that you ninetales can unnerstand human talk. Can ya? Nod your head yes if ya can."

The ninetales yawned, the fur on its body gleaming in the setting sun. Dodger pushed his lower lip out and scowled. "What the hell am I doin', talking to a pokemon," he muttered under his breath. "Thinkin' these things can listen an' talk back to people." Pulling out a knife and a choke collar, he hesitantly approached the fire fox. It took one step back and bristled, the hackles on its back raising.

"Yeah, well, you're the one that gotchorself into this mess! I gotta get ya out whether you like it or not and ya can't be a bitch about it," he complained. Clumsily, he knelt down on his good knee as close to it as he dared, reaching out with the knife to cut the snare from the stake in the ground. He suddenly sat back as the pokemon whirled its body around and faced him directly, hiding its pinioned foot behind the sweep of its many tails.

"I mean whaddaya want me to do?" Dodger said, exasperated. "I can't just let you go! I'll get busted for sure! Giovanni would kill to have a ninetales—literally, he would _kill! _Besides," he added, partially to reassure himself, "I bet alla those stories about nintales cursin' folks is just that—stories. You can't really curse me, can you? You're just a pokemon. And all pokemon—" and here he reached forward with the choke collar opened "—exist for the glory of Team Rocket."

_Do not. _

The strange voice in his head sent chills down his spine and arrested the movement of his hands. He scowled, his bushy eyebrows furrowing with something that was more confusion than fear. It was his voice, but it did not come from him. He knew that people had something called a conscience, but he also knew that _his_ had been dead for twenty years. He met the ninetales's crimson eyes as it stared him down. It didn't seem to look any different, save that it was still bristling with him being too close, and _he _didn't feel any different, which meant that maybe he hadn't been cursed just yet. He sighed and swept off his hat, scratching his head as he sat on the grass to think over his problem.

"Well, shit," he said as he mused. He reached out with the collar again and then there were the words in his head again, branded on his brain.

_DO NOT. _

It came from his head, but it wasn't something he'd say to himself. Glowering, he figured that he had spooked himself into thinking that something bad was going to happen to him if he put his hands on the ninetales. He realized that he would have to touch the ninetale's precious tail anyway, even if he wanted to free it from the snare, no strings attached.

As if it knew what he was thinking, the ninetales hopped a little on its free foot, jerking its pinioned foot against the wire. It spat out an impatient lick of flame from its muzzle and then yipped at Dodger, either a warning or a command for help he could not identify.

"I know what'cher feelin', though," he said, looking at the pokemon's trapped foot and tail. He reflexively rubbed his thigh above the cast and then tapped the choke collar in his hand. As far as he was concerned, he had three choices. He could bring back the ninetales to Giovanni and get cursed, he could free the ninetales and get cursed anyway, or he could walk away from the whole thing and get—well, probably shot in the back of the head and thrown out of a helicopter for insubordination.

_I mean, it's not like I like kissing Giovanni's ass_, he thought, _but even if I act up, it won't bother him cuz he can just boot me. And what am I provin', helping this bastard? I'll probably just end up shootin' myself in the foot. And what if he changes his mind and promotes me for givin' 'im this ninetales? He'll like it, I bet. But what if it really can curse people? And what does boss need with a ninetales anyway? He'll probably make someone kill it cuz it's already injured. Can ninetales be killed?_

"This is stupid," he said suddenly. "I can't believe I'm even thinkin' this shit. And even if ya did curse me, you wouldn't make my life any worse than it is right now, I'll tell ya that right now." He shuffled to his one good knee again and inched forward confidently. "Talkin' to an animal that don't even unnerstan' me even though everybody says it can. Stupid."

He furrowed his brow, thinking hard. _I don't even wanna do this. But I'm gonna. It's their fault that I don't feel good after watching that initiation ceremony. I hate that shit. So now I feel all sad and shit. It's stupid. After this, I'll feel just as bad as I did before. So this is a waste of my time. But if I have to feel like shit, I make them pay for makin' me feel bad. They're not gonna get this ninetales._

He looked into the pokemon's eyes. "Ya can't curse me when I touch'cha, got it? Cuz I'm doin' a good thing here and you can't get maddat me. I'm gonna let'cha go and you're gonna go run off and I'll just go tell Giovanni that you pulled the snare out, right? So then he can't fault me fer tryin'." _Effin' brilliant, _he added glumly in his mind.

The ninetales snarled with he laid a gloved hand on its haunch, and he instinctively clamped a hand down on its hock to keep it from kicking him. "C'mon, calm down, ya bastard," he grunted as he worked the knife into the dirt next to the metal spike in the ground. The dirt loosened and he pulled up the stake, panting. "There," he puffed. "Now you're good to go." He tried to laugh but he felt too sick and nervous. _Cursed or dead, cursed or dead—I hate this place!_

The ninetales limped on three legs around the clearing, and then whirled around and bit at the loose snare. It fell from its body, covered in blood, and as the pokemon flared out its nine flag-like tails, the injured appendage became saturated in blood. Dodger grimaced as he saw it was hanging at an unnatural angle. The wound that the wire had made must have been deeper than he had initially thought.

"Shouldn't'a struggled so much," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "But'cha can't blame me cuz I helped you." He tucked the knife back into his belt loop and shouldered the choke collar. "Stupid sonofabitch…."

The ninetales planted all four feet solidly on the mossy green grass of the clearing and stared at him. Dodger, hitching the choke collar farther up on his shoulder, caught sight of its angry gaze and turned towards it to scare it off.

And found that he could not move.

Fear struck him like a blow to the stomach when he realized that his hand was creeping towards the knife in his belt. His fingers wrapped around the hilt and the blade came out smoothly.

_Mind control,_ he thought, panicked. _I forgot they had the power of mind control._

The fire fox's eyes glowed like starlight as it slowly approached him on delicate paws, forcing him to press the blade of the knife against his throat. It bit in deep enough to draw blood, and Dodger found that he couldn't even scream for help. An instant later he was on his knees in front of the pokemon, and that its nose was a breath away from his own. The mild wind stirred the ruff of golden fur on its neck.

His eyes locked on the pokemon's, Dodger's head filled with the voice that he had heard earlier, and this time it had a personality behind it_. _It was equal parts calm and sad and angry, and Dodger felt sick when he listened to them.

_I told you not to touch me, but you did not listen. You will be the first human who has felt my tribe's curse in a hundred years. You will be plagued for your entire lifetime, and I shall make it so that you shall live as long as the members of my tribe. And we live an exceptionally long time._

The fox leaned in closer. Its hot breath smelled like woodsmoke.

_But because you have acted to save me, I shall offer you an alternative. _

_I shall give you one week to atone for your sins. _

_And then I will kill you._


	4. Orders from the Top

Whatever you do, do not review.

I have used my superior powers of coding to hack into the fanfictiondotnet system and totally disable the review button for this story. o_o Do not bother to make the attempt. Pressing the 'review' button for this story would be like finishing a pokemon off with FALSE SWIPE.

Thanks for reading.

* * *

Chapter IV: Orders from the Top

The sky was rapidly turning orange above their heads and a lavender blush was creeping from the edges of the horizon. The wind stung against the small cut in Dodger's neck where the ninetales had forced his own knife against his skin, but he was too shocked to really register the distant pain. The fire fox's eyes glowed brilliantly as it forced the Team Rocket agent's hand down and allowed him to drop the blade.

_Choose, _the voice in his head commanded, none too gently. His eyes went towards the pokemon's bleeding tail and he cursed again. He wasn't the one who had trapped this pokemon. He had freed it! And now he was faced with either a 1,000 year cursed life or death after a week of what—atoning for sins? What the hell did that even mean?

"What kinda deal is that?" he snapped at the ninetales, who had apparently allowed him to speak while refusing to allow his body to get up from his forced kneeling position. His broken shin was _killing _him. "I either get to live a sucky life for a thousan' years and die, or live for another sucky week and die?"

_Most humans would not have been offered this mercy, _the ninetales reminded him. _I can just as easily turn you into a pokemon and have over with it. Would you rather I do that?_

"You're sayin' you're gonna kill me in a week and I should be happy about it? You're outta yer mind!"

_Very well. _The glow in its eyes grew brighter and its tails suddenly fanned out behind it, catching the light of the setting sun. _Do you prefer jynx or tangela? _

"No, no, just be quiet a second! I don't wanna be no pokemon, but I don't even know what'cher saying. Atone for what, exactly? That means fix, right? What do I gotta do?"

The ninetales frisked its tails over its back and then settled onto its haunches. _What do you think you should do?_

"I think I should stop bullshittin' with a pokemon and go _home, _is what I should do!" Dodger complained. "What have I done that I gotta be sorry for?"

The pokemon turned its head and scratched the ruff under its chin with its uninjured back paw. _Much. _

Dodger made a face. "Okay, so if I go put flowers on that dumb marowak's grave, you'll leave me alone? That still doesn't solve the problem that you're gonna _kill me_!"

The ninetales's back paw came down sharply on the ground with sound like a gunshot, and Dodger found himself suddenly blinded to his surroundings. He could tell his eyes were open because he was blinking frantically, but he wasn't _seeing _the ninetales or the clearing around him. He couldn't even bring his hands up to cover his face; he was frozen in shock when he took in the sudden change. He knew he was _in _the clearing because he could feel the grass under his hands and could smell the fresh air carrying the smell of the sea, but he wasn't seeing it.

Instead, in his head, he was back in the Team Rocket underground auditorium, standing on the stage and sweating underneath the harsh lights. Out in the audience were hundreds of black-clad agents, looking as he must have looked to the new recruits that morning: faceless and impassive. In front of him, Giovanni was holding something dark out towards him, and his mind's eye saw his hand come up and take it. It was a black market pistol, and it was loaded, and suddenly he knew where he was.

The power of the ninetales forced his gaze down and he found himself looking into the face of his best friend. Silken white head, twitching whiskers fanning out around a squishy black nose, lustrous eyes gazing adoringly up at him—

_His name was Water Whip, right? _the ninetales asked mercilessly.

And his hand lifted and he squeezed the trigger. Twice. The dewgong flopped to the floor and the audience erupted into applause. He felt sick, sicker than before, sicker than he actually had been twenty years ago when he had committed the act. The words _I'm sorry_were stuck in his throat and instead he laughed, a harsh, bitter sound.

Then his vision shifted and rewound itself and he was looking up with Water Whip's eyes into his own young face, and he felt the love that his pokemon had had for him melt in a surge of confusion and fear as the first bullet grazed his cheek and the second entered the space above his temple. The anguish in his heart would have been enough to stop its beating if he had actually known what Water Whip had felt.

The sequence rewound itself again and repeated from his own point of view. And repeated. And repeated. And repeated. Over and over until eyes were streaming with tears and his whole body trembled with grief so poignant it was physically painful.

_This, for the rest of your cursed existence. One thousand years of this. _

When he came to, his throat was raw from his furious screaming. He opened his eyes with a start and found that the sun had long since set and the air was cold under the starry sky. Groaning, he turned over and flopped onto his back. He was too tired to note that the mind control that the ninetales had had over him was gone, and he reached up and dragged his hand over his face, removing the blades of grass stuck to his scruffy jawline. His entire chest ached from emotion he hadn't felt in decades. The ninetales sat in the same place on the grass in front of him, patient as still as a statue.

"Awright," he croaked miserably, mortified because he was seconds away from bursting into tears. "Awright, I geddit. But whaddaya want me to do? I can't go back in time and not kill 'im. Unless you can bring 'im back somehow?"

The ninetales tilted its head. _Was that hope in your voice?_

"Ah, whadda _you _know?" With much grunting and effort he managed to stand up, putting all of his weight on his good leg, looking around with bleary eyes for his crutches. When he spotted them on the ground, he bent over, lost his balance, and landed in a flailing heap. The ninetales danced away, tails swirling, tossing its head in an imitation of laughter. Dodger gathered his crutches in his arms and stood up again, cursing.

"Do you do this to everyone or just the fellas that are down on their luck? Or maybe you do it to the ones who you hold a grudge against for SAVING YOUR LIFE!"

The ninetales was trotting, favoring its injured leg, towards the line of trees. _I do it because I like you, _it told him.

"Wait, come back! Ya haven't told me what I was supposed to do!"

_Be creative. _The golden vision leapt over a tall hedge and was lost to him in the darkness. _We'll be in touch. _

"Be creative, it says," Dodger muttered. He spotted the snare lying in the grass and, with some difficulty, managed to pick it up. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

* * *

Elliot was pissed, to put it mildly.

It was dawn the next morning. Dodger had barely had time to shower before he had to drag himself back to work. There were huge circles under his eyes and his hat had a rather obvious grass stain. His arms ached from his "sprint" from his apartment to the hideout. Wearily, he watched Elliot pacing up and down in front of his carved tiger maple desk, the length of black snare wire in his tightly clenched hands.

"Tell me again what happened," he said, too calm given his pinched expression, "and this time _listen _to yourself when you tell me."

"It's like I said, boss. I got to the spot marked on the map and there wasn't no pokemon there. It pulled the snare out somehow and it ran away. So I picked up the snare so's I could show ya that I wasn't lyin'."

Elliot strung the wire between his fingers. "What kind of pokemon do you suppose set it off?"

"I dunno. Spearow?"

The vice president's face twisted into a grimace. "You're trying to tell me that a _bird _pulled a twelve-inch iron stake out of the ground, Dodger?"

Dodger shrugged, staring at the plush carpet under his feet. His pants were wrinkled beyond belief.

"Dodger! Pay attention!"

Dodger snapped into a straighter stance, even though it was mostly a result of getting yelled at and not because of any shared respect. He was happy enough that his hat was pulled down far enough over his eyes that he didn't have to endure Elliot's withering gaze.

"This trap was planted for a specific purpose. We needed whatever was in that snare, Dodger. We're several dogs short to sell to the growlithe mill that supplies dogs for the cage fights." The Rocket exec wound the snare around his fist a few times and then dropped it into the wastebasket beside his desk. Sitting down in the black leather chair, he pulled a piece of paper out of a file and uncapped a pen that was lying next to his closed laptop.

"I told you that you didn't have any room to mess up, Dodger, and guess what you just did? You messed up. It's getting to be a little ridiculous and I don't know if I want you in my division any more if this is the way you're going to work."

"Wasn't my fault," he muttered. Elliot's pen paused for a millisecond before he continued to write busily on the form.

"I'm writing you up for dereliction of duty in the face of a specific order. I'm being nice, because you've got a busted leg and probably feel pretty bad. You're being docked pay for the week and don't think you're going to be doing anything but paperwork for the next couple of months." He signed the form with a flourish and tore off a sheet underneath it. "Read it over and think about what you're doing next time, Dodger. You _will_ be cut the next time this sort of event happens."

Elliot offered the slip to Dodger and smiled as he took it. "Now get out there and try not to embarrass me any more."

"Dodger!"

He looked up from his write-up, his face dark. Jilla stood in front of him, twirling the keys to the storeroom on her gloved finger. "We've got chow duty today, buddy," she said. "C'mon, I got somewhere to be after this."

Grabbing his crutches, he followed her out of the in processing room and down the stairs to the sub-basement. Jilla was whistling and skipping a little. "Somebody recently caught an ekans for the poison pool, but remember, you can't feed it. Today's only its third day and you can't spoil it. It has to last at least two more nights without food."

He mumbled something that might have meant 'okay'. Jilla looked over her shoulder and beamed. "Aww, don't worry about the write-up, Dodg. Everybody gets 'em. Hell, Kev got _demoted _for what happened to Al, even though he brought in a huge load from that lapras. Not getting paid for a week sure beats having to scrape rocks at Mount Moon!"

"Stop trying to cheer me up, Jilla. It's making it worse."

The woman laughed, a stabbing sound that hurt his ears. "I had a bad streak of luck today, too," she said, unlocking the storage room to retrieve the food carts. "Got challenged by some little asshole from Pallet and he whooped me pretty good. He had an Eevee. Where the hell do you even get those things?"

They filled the stainless steel bowls on the carts in silence. Since none of the ground types in her assigned pool were carnivores, all Jilla had to do was funnel dried berry pellets into the bowls on her cart. Dodger added a dead pidgey in each of his bowls along with a handful of dried berry pellets, and they both walked towards the cage halls where the Rocket's pokemon were stored.

"Remember to lock up when you're done," she said, handing him one of the keys off of the chain. He unlocked the door and, with some difficultly, pushed the cart into the narrow hallway with his good knee. The door slammed behind him.

The hallway was dark, but it was always kept this way. He felt around on the wall for the light switch and flipped it.

There were twenty cages, ten on each side of the narrow aisle. Each cage had a hungry occupant staring at him with empty eyes. He sighed and grabbed the first bowl. "Yeah, yeah," he said, unlocking the first cage and shoving the bowl towards the zubat hanging there. "Don't gimme that look, ya freaks."

He moved down the line until he got to a cage with a red label tied to the lock. The ekans inside was curled into a tight purple knot, but when Dodger peeked inside, it raised its head and hissed weakly at him. He scratched his head and looked around, and then stole the pidgey out of another pokemon's bowl, unlocked the cage and tossed it into the cage, surprising the ekans, who slithered after it as he closed the door.

_There. I'm atoning for stuff. I guess. _

But as he continued to feed the pokemon on each side of the aisle, he got the feeling that he wasn't quite doing _enough. _So when he finished feeding the last one, he got an idea.

And he _hated _getting ideas.

He pushed the cart outside again and came back in to double-check if he had locked all of the doors. The pokemon in the cages stared out at him, their soft chewing sounds the only things he heard, and suddenly he became defiant. _Elliot wrote me up and said I was lazy. Well, I'll show him. I'll work against him as much as I can. After all, I only have a week to live, right?_

He walked down the aisle and unlocked every one of the twenty cages. Most of the pokemon were busy eating, but a few of the zubats flew out and fluttered around the light near the ceiling. The starving ekans was still gradually swallowing its pidgey.

"There," he said when he finished, limping towards the door. "Now you can run free and do whatever the hell you do when you're in the wild."

He closed and locked it behind him, feeling supremely clever, and went to return the empty cart to the storeroom. Jilla was waiting for him and put her hand out for the key.

"What took you so long?" she asked, irritated.

"I, uh, hadda bash one of em on the head a couple times to let go of a pidgey. It tried to bite me so I didn't feed it."

"Oh." She walked next to him as they ascended the stairs. Then she grinned quirkily. "You really are a nasty bastard, aren't'cha?"

The rest of the day passed slowly, with Dodger brooding over his impending fate. _Be creative, _the ninetales had said. But he wasn't creative. He wasn't even smart. The only thing he could think of would be to paint 'Giovanni sucks' on the walls of the Game Corner, but that wouldn't be atoning for anything, would it? And since when did he become so calm about dying in a week, anyway? He winced when he thought of what the ninetales had made him see. To live forever, with that playing over and over in his mind…he would never be desensitized to that. But to be killed in a week just for saving that stupid pokemon's butt was something he couldn't stomach. But he had to stomach it. It was what he chose.

What if releasing pokemon from the pool was enough? Sure, they could always catch more, right? But it wouldn't be his problem. He would have tried.

He had to say sorry for what he had done, and he didn't even know what he _did. _And apparently he didn't have a lot of time to figure it out.

* * *

He left work late that afternoon, close to sundown. He pulled on his black coat over his uniform and, fixing his hat at a jaunty angle over his ear, he ascended the stairs, exited the Game Corner, and was immediately smashed over the head.

"_You murderer!"_

The cane cracked down on his skull before he had time to react. He floundered, instinctively reaching up to grab his head and nearly dropping his crutches in the meantime. He spun around in fury and saw a wrinkled old man in suspenders leaning upon the twisted cane that he had just been struck with. The man's weather-worn face was screwed up with grief and anger.

"What was that for, ya crazy bastard! Ya could'a given me a concession!"

"You killed her!" the old man accused in a wheezy voice, poking him in the chest with a gnarled finger. "I know Team Rocket work when I see it! You invaded our town's pokemon memorial tower the other night and ruthlessly slaughtered a mother marowak!"

_Oh, jeez. _He swept off his hat and scratched the back of his head, looking sheepishly around for any bystanders that might be listening in. Thankfully, it was late enough in the quiet afternoon that most of the citizens were either at home or enjoying themselves too fully to be listening to specific conversations. "Look, old man, I dunno what you're talking about—"

"That poor cubone is an orphan because of you! You killed her in cold blood! You didn't even give any thought to why she was running, did you? Marowak usually fight when their territories are threatened, but this one was running because she had just given birth!"

"Look, even if I was part of Team Rocket, what would I want with a marowak?"

The old man was growing redder in the face. "You don't fool me. You didn't want anything to do with the marowak—you wanted to slaughter her offspring! People like you make me sick. No, you're not people, you're monsters! You should love and respect pokemon and take the time to train them—"

_Oh boy. I've heard this speech before. _"Look, old man, tell you what. I'll tell some of my buddies to go over to the tower and apologize, awright? They might even bring some flowers for ya. Now will ya please get outta my way? I got a lot of stuff to think about."

As he limped away, the old man crowed after him, "I wish she could have broken both of your legs, you heartless fiend!"

Dodger turned his head over his shoulder, too surprised to think about how the man knew that he was the one responsible for the creature's death. "Yeah, well, she didn't get the chance to, did she? I made sure of that, didn't I? Now _beat it!_"

He hobbled home, muttering curses the entire way.

His apartment was on the second story of the building next to the department store, and the only thing he liked about it was that the window faced the woods towards the north, so the constant vibrant lights of the city didn't come into him room at night. It was nothing special: single bedroom, with combination kitchen/dining room/living room and a bathroom that encouraged him to stay slim if only for the reason that he couldn't fit through the door otherwise. The papered walls were bare and there were only three pieces of furniture in the entire place, including the bed.

Once he closed the door behind him and bolted it, he threw his crutches down and hopped the three steps' distance from the door to the bathroom. His leg and head were aching. He felt like he'd been hit with a wrecking ball. He leaned over the sink and tugged open the medicine cabinet, popping the top off of a labeled orange bottle and emptying two pills into his palm. _Stupid old man, _he thought. _Stupid marowak, stupid starmie, stupid ninetales…._

He closed the medicine cabinet and caught sight of his face in the mirror. He had deep wrinkles under his gray eyes and running down to the corners of his mouth, which seemed chiseled into his face in a perpetual slight frown. His short hair was graying at his temples; he was nearly forty, after all, but he felt so much older. Here he was, already an old man, and he hadn't done anything with his life. He wasn't even a Rocket executive. Just a grunt. A flunkie that most of his superiors could kick around whenever they wanted. He didn't even have any pokemon that actually belonged exclusively to him. That fact smarted just a little bit more than the other reasons that he was a complete failure.

He popped the painkillers and swallowed hard, turning on the tap to wash them down with a mouthful of water. Leaving the bathroom light on, he hopped towards his couch and collapsed facefirst onto the cushions, waiting for the medicine to start working. _A write-up, no pay, my head hurts like hell and I'm going to die in a week_, he thought, feeling sorry for himself. _And if they find out that I'm the one who left all those doors opened, I'll be in trouble. Well, _he considered after a moment of thought, _more trouble that I'm already in, anyway._

_You are wasting time!_

The voice was like an air horn going off in his head, and he started so badly that he practically fell off the couch. "How'd _you _get in here?" he bawled at the ninetales, who was sitting across the room on his open balcony. Its golden fur fairly shone against the indigo blue of the evening. Its ninth tail was no longer bleeding and the pokemon looked hale and hearty as ever, if not extremely angry.

_I told you we would be in touch. You are mine, human. You have taken advantage of my mercy!_

He crawled back onto the couch and reflexively reached for something to throw at the intruder. He dropped his arm when he saw the ninetales's lip arch up in a snarl. "What's the problem now?"

_You have six days to live and you have not acted on your word. _

"Whaddaya mean? I released alla them poison-types when I went to feed 'em! I could get in a lot of trouble for that, y'know! I'm trynna do that atoning thing you told me about!"

_You released them, but you didn't open the outer door for them to escape back into the wild, you infant! _The ninetales suddenly jumped up from its calm sitting position and spat out a lick a flame into the air, which fizzled out into embers on Dodger's carpet. _You do not have the luxury of being lax in your efforts!_

"I'm doin' all I _can _do, jeez! Do you think it's easy for me?"

_You're not trying hard enough._

"So? I'd try harder if I knew what the hell I was supposed to be doing! Jeez, ya gotta spell it out for me cuz I can't read yer mind, ya son of a bitch!"

_I am not telling you to apologize for another human's sin. I have charged you with the task of apologizing for your own! You must right the wrongs that you have directly caused._

"How? I only do what I'm told. I don't make any of the decisions in Team Rocket."

_No! _The ninetales's nostrils were emitting smoke in thin tendrils. _It is not something you have been commanded to do!_

"I dunno what you want," Dodger said stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I ain't done _nothing."_

The ninetales barked at him, leaping nimbly through the balcony's open door and landing with legs braced on the low wooden table in front of Dodger's couch, knocking several unfinished cans of warm beer and a stack of magazines onto the floor. Tales flared and a growl rumbling in its throat, the fire fox's next words squeezed the air out of Dodger's lungs with the force of their command.

_The seel trade, human! I am telling you to shut down the seel trade!_


End file.
